Engrave
by herebesherlocks
Summary: In her spare time, Sally likes to carve wood. I carve too. There are no scars, only patterns. (Rather dark, but nothing sexual, violent or otherwise objectionable).


In her spare time, Sally likes to carve wood.

It's an unusual hobby for an inhabitant of this gasping, ersatz city, and more so for a woman ('Nice,' John might huff, mistaking statistics for generalization and misanthropy for misogyny. Or perhaps he would direct his scorn at my audacity in passing judgment on other people's diversions—as though romance novels and crap telly hold inherently more fascination than the effects of acid on decaying flesh).

Her hands are scarred with a particular randomness. Small blade. Sharp, but sturdy; too deep to reflect ineptitude with a razor or paring knife. Scattered. She is ambidextrous, or nearly so, but not immune to habit. Callous on the right thumb.

When she was small, she carved patterns on twigs and slivers of bark. The oldest scars are deep but faded, minor stabs along the sides of the pointer fingers and palms. Careless technique, corrected by her grandfather. I wonder how often he took her camping. She still misses him.

More recent scars, thumb. Hasty strokes. Stress relief, after long hours at crime scenes.

Crime scenes? Donovan doesn't mind them, doesn't unconsciously trace her own scars at the sight of mangled corpses. Doesn't fear adrenaline, crowds, never fled London for the countryside she loved as a child. Stress at the office? Possibly. Colleagues? Even more likely. All police sergeants hate paperwork. But she hates me more.

It seems probable that I am the indirect cause of some of those marks. But I carve too. There are no scars, only patterns.

.

.

.

Lestrade is angry. He shouts, all steam, boiling over. Sweat beads beneath his silvering hair and slight stubble grazes his chin. Empty espresso cups litter his car and his usually pressed shirt is rumpled. His left hand trembles slightly. Working overtime, or he would have swapped out the depleted nicotine patch. That's not why he's angry.

His words evaporate before they reach me. They melt to meaningless sound waves and reverberate, accentuated by adrenaline, bringing the office into sharper relief. Offices—I have spent my life avoiding them. Guardians of catalogued and obvious information. Resolutely dull, and yet I am ambushed by details, off guard in the way they think I never am. The art of disguise is hiding in plain sight. There is a coffee ring on Lestrade's desk, and a patch of carpet peels itself up. Anderson has tripped over it twice in the past week. Sally has a fresh cut on her thumb, maybe because the room is sharp-edged and engraving on my brain. She scowls at my gaze and turns away.

The man would have died anyway; a rooftop chase saved the justice system time. The shingles were loose. He was clumsy and I wasn't.

John boils too, a hissing teakettle.

I imagine her coffee-brown hands, scarred and manicured. Smooth strokes, silky wood; a small figure forms. She perches it on the filing cabinet too close to the edge. It teeters, falls among pointlessly littered shavings. With a little less effort I'd be one of them.

I carve too. You can't see the scars.

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.

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The children died. I solved the case, too late. No bricks without clay.

Sacrifices, necessary to obtain the relevant materials.

John is angry. The yellow face on the wall echoes a better time. Gunshots exchanged for Royal Army mug slammed down on scarred tabletop. Uneasiness is all I can muster. I can't remember remorse. Did I learn remorse? Gone, deleted. Mycroft will be angry.

I wonder if Sally made sacrifices. This time she feeds the wood more blood. The grain absorbs it; what else would it do? Carving is straightforward. You don't need euphemism to call a stain polish.

Falls harder and there is a single spidery crack. One day we'll be standing around a body.

I carve, too. You can see the patterns.

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.

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I have forgotten remorse and several others. Only John remains, painted in blood letters on the wall. _John (JAHN), der. Hebrew, usage: Biblical, grace or mercy. _Denotation, at least, is on his side.

"All right, Sherlock?"

He wanders in with a plate of Mrs. Hudson's scones and mercifully does not turn on the television. I carve a notch next to his name. There are many already there, and when I trace them there is no pain. I am afraid to carve designs on this wall.

Contentment reigns until he leaves two hours later, and then the silence pounds delicate impressions into my skull. What is it like, I wonder, carving bone?

Only Sally sees the splinters beneath my nails. I wonder if she ever gave a thought to putting me back together again.

Drugs and hounds are not new; merely a twisted recollection of the past. The real mystery of Baskerville stalks me, however. Once I catch my hands trembling. It is unfamiliar, unlike the altered face in the mirror. I paint the new feeling on the wall beside John and it disappears.

_Crack._ Suicide bombers. Bad Samaritan.

_Crack._ I don't wear ties.

_Crack._ Kidnapped children. Maybe don't do the smiling.

_Crack._ I have been reliably informed.

The children survive. I can look in the mirror without gleaning unwanted details. My face makes her scream, though. Vaguely I am unsurprised at the reaction. Sally always feels like screaming when I walk into a room.

If I splinter, at least it is along the grain.

John is still translating for me. He thinks. But things are blurring again. I understand, I want to tell him, _I_ understand, but I keep silent because that is no longer true. I don't tell Mycroft either but he always knows.

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. I laugh and they pause, uneasy. My brain does not consult anyone, least of all me. Patterns again.

My laugh is too deep and infrequent not to be unnerving. They don't know how much better it is than the alternative.

But connotation is on my side and they need me. Heaven help them. I am afraid to sleep.

Deprivation is nothing new. Oxygen, glucose, serotonin. It always comes back to blood, circadian rhythms and cardiovascular pathways. I am laughing again.

Sleep is uncharted territory and expansion, deeper grooves, channels that should not be followed. I find myself tracing them as I drowse on the sofa. John thinks I am afraid that sleep will shut off my brain function. The opposite is true.

When I wake, the walls are covered in carvings.

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.

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Sally's knife is dull. John needs to get the powder bands off his fingers. Mycroft doesn't like to get his hands dirty, and neither does Jim—Jim is consulting again.

The lines have crept onto John's wall, spiderwebbing. I don't know how they got there.

Patterns, I thought patterns were better. Control.

You can see the scars.

Jim is consulting again.

* * *

**A/N: Because I love dark Sherlock and there isn't enough. Thoughts?**


End file.
